Lori Martin of Lubbock and Rosemary Chieppo of Connecticut, who organize homes and workplaces for a living, talk about such things as throwing victims a long lifeline that begins with S&P. But that shouldn't be associated with business matters. It stands for Sort and Purge.

"A lot of times you may have strong sentimental values to things that you are still hanging on to," Martin said.

"So it helps to have someone who is objective come in and just say, OK, really, are you going to be using this?'"

Chieppo, who has written a book titled "Clutter, Chaos & the Cure," and subtitled "Or Why You Never Misplace Your Toothbrush," says things don't get lost when they are kept near their point of use.

In a phone interview, she said a toothbrush is not misplaced because it has a home.

"You've got to give your things a home. Like our mothers said, a place for everything and everything in its place."

Martin shares some of the principles of effective organization by this recommendation:

Martin said an organized home is easy to clean. "It shouldn't take you more than five minutes to clean a room, because if everything has a place it doesn't take long to put it there."

Chieppo has an acrostic to use in keeping the right sequence of steps when setting out to overhaul the interior space of a home. It is SPACE.

The "S" and "P," stand for the already mentioned sort and purge; "A" means assign a home to each thing; "C" stands for containerize, or find a shelf or drawer for items.

And "E" somewhat suspiciously stands for equalize, as another word for maintenance.

Whether beginning or continuing an organizational program, the process involves some discomfort - another word for self-discipline.

"To me, getting organized is like going on a diet or quitting smoking," Chieppo said. "It starts up in your head. You've got to decide, I don't want to live like this anymore.' "

She said, "I tell people you've got to maintain it, you've got to commit to living an organized life. When you are organized you are proactive rather than reactive.

"I'm no smarter or better than anybody else. I'm just organized. I'm not going to waste my time that way, because time is very precious."

Martin has good news for anyone staring at a mountain of clutter, and wondering where to start.

"Most of the time we probably have more space than we realize. We just have more stuff in it than what we need. It's about using all the space that we have. I think a lot of times we use flat surfaces - the horizontal things always catch everything. I always try to evaluate the vertical space so that you are using from floor to ceiling as much as possible."

Chieppo has a test to determine whether an organizer has been successful with the organizing project: